


Semper Fi

by Isis



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M, POV Outsider, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-09-14
Updated: 2005-09-14
Packaged: 2017-11-27 13:45:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/662675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isis/pseuds/Isis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sorenson's a loyal Marine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Semper Fi

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Fisticuffs](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/16477) by Zeelee. 



> Written for the SGA 2005 Remix Challenge.
> 
> Thanks to my betas Amanuensis1, Z. Raine, and especially Fabula Rasa, who gave me the runs. Um.

First thing you gotta understand is, there were a lot of pissed-off people in our battalion.  Because we all respected Colonel Sumner.  He was a Marine, one of us, and we don't dick around when it comes to Semper Fi.

So he goes off to Antarctica.  Even those of us who didn't get picked for the mission knew what was going on; I mean, we all work for the SGC, right?  Yeah, we knew about Atlantis.  A whole different planet in a whole different galaxy.  We all wanted to go with him, every single one of us.

But only one company from the battalion got to go, and it wasn't mine.  Which meant that I wasn't there, none of my squad was there, and maybe if we had been it would have been different.  But instead they got this fucking Air Force major, and you know what we Marines say about the Air Force:  "I'd rather have a sister in a whorehouse than a brother in the Air Force," which, okay, it ain't really fair, but you gotta understand, that's just the way we look at it.  Because if a guy was really tough, he'd have joined the Marines, right?

Anyway, this Major Sheppard, who we find out later was some grunt-work chopper pilot, basically the bus driver at McMurdo, gets to go to Atlantis, when none of us guys in my company got to go.  And then about a month ago we get this message through the gate, all these recorded messages, and we find out what's been going on out there all this time.  We find out that Colonel Sumner got himself captured by some of the local bad guys, and that Sheppard goes out, says he's gonna rescue him, right?  But he doesn't rescue him. He kills him.

So of course we're all pissed off.  Pulaski's got a friend in the Air Force - yeah, I know what I said about the Air Force, but this is Cheyenne Mountain, we have to work with them here, okay?  Anyway, Pulaski said his friend said that the whole reason Sheppard got hung out to dry at McMurdo was because he fucked up in Afghanistan.  And it sounds to us like Sheppard fucked up again.  So when he shows up here acting like he's hot shit, going around with all these scientists, Dr. This and Dr. That, and the word is that they're going to make him Lieutenant Colonel, well, me and Pulaski, we don't like it at all.

It's not just us.  Everybody's talking about it; you know how these things go.  Rumors spread through the mess hall faster than the runs on chili dog day, all it takes is one word and the story just takes off.  And okay, maybe there's a bit of, you know, sour grapes, because they're taking more Marines back to Atlantis with them on the Daedalus, and my squad's still not going.  But mostly it's because we just really respected Colonel Sumner, and it's an insult to us and to him that they're gonna give this fuck-up who killed him a promotion to Lieutenant Colonel.

We had just left the mess, me and Pulaski and Blake, and we'd been talking about the whole situation so of course we had it on our minds, when I see one of the scientists that Sheppard's been going around with.  It's the guy who's always complaining about the food, who's always bitching at everybody.  He's been assigned a temporary office near where I'm stationed, so unfortunately I get to listen to his shit a lot.  And the funny thing is he acts like he's a big hero, like it was him who singlehandedly saved them all a bazillion times from dying a fiery death out there in the Pegasus galaxy.  No, not singlehandedly - him and Sheppard, like Batman and Robin or something, and it just pisses me off.

Not that I have anything against scientists.  Some of them are all right, like Colonel Carter - even if she is in the Air Force.  Nah, at least she's military, not like these civilians who throw their weight around and act like we're just part of the scenery, you know?  Like this asshole, who is talking with some other scientists about how he did this, and Sheppard did that, and the universe was saved again, or some shit like that, and I just saw red.

So I say something, I don't remember what exactly.  Something about all of Sheppard's black marks, and about how surprised I was that he'd saved the universe when he was probably just fucking up again, and I wasn't exactly saying it to him, I was saying it to Pulaski, but loud, so the scientist could hear me, and fuck me if he didn't turn and punch me, a wild, lucky shot, right in the face.

Well, I was gonna lay into him, because he's got decent arms but not like he works out or anything, not like I do, but he makes this squeaking noise like he can't believe what he just did - like his fist just shot out without him knowing it - and he ducks behind the scientists he was talking with like he's gonna hide behind mommy's skirts.  So I go after him, but Pulaski and Blake grab me and push me over to the wall, and it turns out to be a good thing because General O'Neill comes around one corner and Major-excuse-me-Lieutenant-Colonel Sheppard comes around the other, and all I could think of was damn, I am so fucked.  

But the General just tells me to get my nose looked at, which is incidentally bleeding all over the place, and I am happy to get away from there so I don't have to talk to either Sheppard or his goddamn wolf-dog scientist.  I go to the doc, get it checked out, it ain't broken or anything, so they let me go.

Maybe an hour later I'm walking back through the lab area and I see Sheppard coming out of one of the offices.  And I'm thinking, oh shit, because yeah, he's Air Force and I'm a Marine, but he's an officer and I'm just an NCO, and if he wants to make life tough for me he can, no problem.  But he looks at me, and he kind of - grins.  His hair is mussed, and his uniform is rumpled - he's still doing up his jacket - and his lips are sort of swollen.  Not like someone's been punching him in the face.  Like someone's been kissing him.  

And that's when I realize whose office he just came out of.

I ain't gonna ask, and I ain't gonna tell.  Because all of a sudden I have a little more sympathy for him - hell, I have a lot of sympathy, if he has to put up with that asshole scientist for a boyfriend.  You gotta understand, I'm a Marine.  Semper Fi.  I'm loyal to my country, I'm loyal to my CO, I'm loyal to my squad.  But above all I'm loyal to Pulaski, and he's loyal to me, even if we gotta hide it.  The scientist, well, I guess he was just being loyal.  I can understand that.

So I grin back.

**Author's Note:**

> Many people seem to approach remixes as though they are writing about the same actual event: they vary the POV character, possibly the POV and tense, but keep the timing of events and any dialogue the same, and frequently this results in a boringly similar story. (Not that it results in a bad story, necessarily - but the reader feels as though she is re-reading the original.)
> 
> I wrote Semper Fi as though describing the same actual events that occurred in Zeelee's Fisticuffs, but using a minor character as viewpoint character. This worked (or at least, I think it did) because her viewpoint character (John) is not present for the first event (Rodney punching the Marine, Sorenson), and mine (Sorenson) is not present for the second event (John and Rodney's discussion and subsequent sex). Our characters only interect for a few moments at two points in the timeline - just after the punch, and just after the sex. This meant I didn't have to worry about the dialogue, although I kept my implied dialogue consistent with her scenario, and that I could focus on what was important to my tangential character (which I gleefully invented!), rather than what was important in her story.
> 
> Writing Sorenson was fun, because I came up with his story first and then let it inhabit me - it just poured out easily and quickly, once I knew where he was coming from and why he was baiting McKay. The line about the sister in the whorehouse, I should add, comes from my high school boyfriend, who aspired to (and eventually did) join the Marines.
> 
> If, for example, I had remixed this story by switching it to Rodney's POV, in this "true to event" style, it would basically be the same story. Incidentally, the decision to write in first person present tense - which I normally dislike - was very deliberate. (This is only my second story in first person [out of 50 or so], and my first in first person present tense!) It gives the story a feel of real-time narration, and cements the characterization, which is important because the narrator is an original character. I think that the choices I made make it a story that complements the original, so that the reader can enjoy either by itself or both together.


End file.
